Crossed Paths
by Creator-Sama
Summary: The Doctor and Rose go to fix a little mistake, but will it lead to something else? Lives may be changed forever. Slightly AU.
1. Prologue

Burning.

It was burning.

She hadn't wanted to, but there was noother choice. He'd mucked up and she had fixed it. Again.

She turned her back on the scene and walked away. Didn't turn around. Didn't even look down at the box of papers she was carrying. Just walked.

She walked away. She _couldn't_ let His words come true.

No. She wouldn't allow it. _Not again._

A single tear rolled down her cheek. Her face set in a stern scowl as she walked away.

Just walked off...

...as the Library of Alexandria burned behind her.

=-=-=

**A/N: Yeah, not much to go on huh? Don't worry though, all will be revealed as the story progresses!! This is the image that came to mind when I first thought up this story. Waaaay back when Rose was still his companion. It's what I'd like as a cover image if it was a book.**

**Yeah... been sitting on this one for awhile now. XD**


	2. Chapter 1

"Aww!!" The Doctor complained as he picked his way through the charred remains of the once-great library. "...and I'd so wanted you to see it, Rose." He bent down to pick up a blackened book, only to have it crumble to dust in his hand as he stood. He opened his hand and watched the breeze carry off the ashes. "Too bad. It was magnificent too..." he trailed off as his mind began to wander.

Behind him Rose was poking around in the ruins. Trying to find something that might have survived. Anything. "Doctor?" she shouted. "What exactly are we looking for?"

He was thinking, his eyes distant. At the sound of his name, though, he blinked and was back. "Huh?" he muttered and turned his upperhalf to look at her and repeated himself a bit more loudly. "Huh?"

Rose thought he might not have understood so she tried to clarify. "I mean, what did you want to come here for anyways?" She looked down as she tried to navigate through all the not-quite-burnt bits to get closer to the Doctor. She absently noted that her white shoes, almost identical to his, only newer, were going to be gray by the time she got home. "It's just a library, right? I mean, can't you just get another copy of... whatever it was you wanted?" She stopped a few feet from him.

"No! 'Course not!" The Doctor turned to look at her, wearing his 'You-can't-possibly-have-just-said-such-a-daft-thing-as-that-Rose-Tyler' look. "This was THE Library of Alexandria! The most complete, lengthy, and, by far, the LARGEST collection of writings in the entire world!! ...at the time, anyway. It's FAMOUS!!" He had started pacing and when he said that last bit he'd stopped and stretched his arms out like he was playing airplane. "THIS. IS. SPARTA!" the Doctor shouted loudly, his face to the heavens.

Rose looked at him.

His head suddenly returned to a more normal angle and a huge grin practically split his face in two. "...always wanted to say that."

Rose grinned at him and giggled at his silliness. "So... what exactly did you want to see?" she asked him.

"Oh, nothing." He ambled around with his hands shoved into his coat pockets. "Just wanted to get something I'd left."

She hated it when he was cryptic like that. She figured he knew that too. Probably why he did it so much. She gave him an 'answer-me-properly-or-else' look and asked, "What was it?"

She couldswer he was acting a bit nervous. "Oh... nothing. Just..." he avoided looking at her like he was afraid of being scolded. "...just a record of Time Lord history... nothing, really..." He kicked at a bit of something and tried to look innocent. Something he only did when he'd done something he knew was bad. He hoped Rose hadn't figured that out.

She had. "But... doesn't that mean that-"

He cut her off. "Yup! It means I left important information that nobody on earth is ever supposed to know, lying about in a library where anybody who wanted to could read it." he said quickly. Far too quickly.

It took his companion a minute to process his faster-than-light confession. "So... I take it that's bad." It wasn't a question.

"Yup." He popped the 'p' for effect.

"And that means... you've altered history?"

"Yup." he popped the 'p' again.

""Gave mankind way more than it was ready for" and all that jazz?"

"Yup." Another pop.

"So you may have screwed the entire universe by leaving that behind?"

"Yyyup." Again with the pop.

"...you like making that sound when you say 'yup' don't you?"

He gave her a look that said 'Do you really need to ask?' and smiled. "...Yup!" But he'd done it again anyways.

She liked that about him. Even when threatened with the possible end of the universe because of a silly mistake, something all his fault, he still acted as though it was all a big cosmic joke. "So why don't you seem the least bit worried?"

He grinned at her. That's why he kept her around, Rose Tyler, she was quick. "Besidesthe fact that it's probably ash now, I don't think, even in a billion years, that you humans could even _begin_ to understand the complexities of the Time Lord society!"

Aha. "It's in Gallifreyan, isn't it." she asked him. She knew the answer before she'd asked though. Her reward was a crafty grin almost as large as eternity. "Y'know, if you keep smiling like that all the time, your face will split in two." she commented casually as they picked their way out of the burned remains and towards the Tardis.

"Naah."

"Yes you will! Your face will split in half and you'll hafta regenerate again!"

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "Why, Rose Tyler, I didn't know you were so worried about me!" he joked. The soreness of the regeneration subject had long since been dealt with.

"No, it's just that, I finally get used to you looking like that, and you go around carelessly smiling something that the Face of Boe would be jealous of? You trying for a record or something? 'Most Interesting Ways For A Time Lord To Regenerate'?" She whacked his shoulder and faked being cross with him.

They reached the Tardis and as he unlocked it he pretended to think about the idea. "'Most Interesting Ways For A Time Lord To Regenerate' huh? Sounds like fun!" They got in and he started to look at the controls as if pondering where to go next.

"Home."

He looked up suddenly. "What?"

"Home." she restated. "I want to go home."

"Why?"

"...my clothes stink. All of 'em. Dirty. Let's go."

He was silent for a moment. "...okay." and he proceeded to do his Dance of the Time Lords. Rose had taken to making up names for his odd habits. She particularly liked coming up with names for when he ran aroundthe controls, whacking stuff, and smiling like an assylum escapee. The thought of him in a straightjacket crossed her mind. It wouldn't have been so bad if the jacket hadn't looked like his normal suitcoat with extra-long sleeves.

As the ship arrived, the Doctor was nearly scared out of said suitcoat when Rose, who hehad ended up right next to, burst out into a fit of seemingly random laughter, and fell over onto the floor.

"Oi! What's so funny, then?"

She couldn't answer him through her laughing, but she pointedat him as if that explained it.

"Huh?" He looked down at himself. "What?"

More laughter and some unintelligable almost-words.

"Hey, what are you laughing at, anyway?" he asked a bit irked, but not at anything or anyone in particular.

She just laughed away at him.

He got a stroke of genius and reached into his coat to pull out the psychic paper. "Hold this?"

She looked at him and took it, but didn't stop laughing. She was actually starting to cry from laughing so much.

"What's so funny?" he asked her way-too-sweetly. After a few seconds more of being laughed at he took it back and looked at it. And looked some more. He pulled out his glasses and kept on looking at it. He returned it to the safety of his pocket and did the same with hisspecs. "Oh." he said.

He then proceeded to fall to the floor laughing just like she had.

=-=-=

A/N: Sorry! Sorry about the Sparta joke! When I thought up that scene it was popular! Andnow I just can't see that being taken out!! X3

And I'd love to see someone draw the "Doctor in a Straightjacket" scene!! XD plzplzplz!!


	3. Chapter 2

Jackie waited patiently on her sofa. She'd heard the Tardis, she just didn't want to go running out every time it appeared. She thought it made her sound rather like a puppy when it's owner got home. Well, that and Rose had once said that if she kept doing that, the Doctor would make Rose move into the Tardis.

Jackie didn't want that, so she had agreed to her daughter's request.

After a half-hour of listening to them screaming and laughing in the yard; she was trying to decide whether or not to go ask if they were coming in, when the doorbell rang.

"I'm coming!" It rang again. "I said I was coming!!" And again and again and again. She threw open the door to ask if the person was deaf, to find Rose and the Doctor standing there talking.

And the Doctor was holding down the doorbell.

When he looked up, the Doctor thought he could see a vein popping out in her forehead. Jackie was not happy.

"What's _wrong_ with you?!" she screamed at him and smacked the hand holding down the doorbell.

"Yeow!" He rubbed the offended hand and the red mark that was showing up. "Did you really need to break out the Jackie-Slap?" He ducked as another one came at his head.

Rose decided that it wasn't a good idea to let her mother clobber the Doctor. So, to keep them from killing eachother, she bravely put one arm around her mother in a hug and used the other to shove the Doctor inside. "Break it up you two." the younger Tyler scolded.

"She started it." the man pointed a finger at her accusingly.

"_I bloody well did not!!_"

Rose was having a hard time remembering why it had been a good idea to come home.

=-=-=

After Rose had closed the door, it was pretty quiet.

SLAP.

...or had been, for about thirty-two seconds. Then the door opened and Rose walked out and leaned on the railing outside her front door. She loved her mum, but sometimes she just had to escape. Yes, the Doctor was still in there, but only because he had to explain to Jackie why they had shown up a week later than promised.

Rose took a deep breath. It was still relatively early, so the air still had that morning crispness to it. She'd always liked that. Morning air had to be one of her most favorite smells. It smelled all fresh and new. Like a new pair of PJs fresh and warm from the dryer.

Something caught her eye and pulled her from her thoughts.

It took a second, but she spotted it. A neighbor was peeking out their front door. Rose then noticed the numbers above the door. That was Miss Anita's flat. But why on earth was she acting all covert? Was she trying to avoid someone?

The door closed suddenly but had reopened just as quick as the lady stepped outside and zipped up her sky-blue hoodie.

"Oi! Miss Anita!" Rose called out and waved. The shout causing the woman to jump.

Miss Anita looked around nervously before spotting Rose and putting a hand on her chest. She hurried with locking her door and jogged down the stairs to begin her routine morning jog.

"OI!" Rose shouted a bit louder to her.

The woman looked up. "Oh! Rose!" she said, relieved. "I didn't see you there!"

Rose knew that was a lie, but ignored it. "Where you off to at..." she glanced down and realised that she hadn't reset it when she had come home. It read 6pm. Obviously incorrect. "...darnit. My watch stopped." she fibbed. "What time do you have?"

"Uhh... about... Sheesh! 7:30!" Anita exclaimed.

"Wow. 7:30? What are you still doing here? Your usually gone by 6!"

"Yeah, I know. It's just that I- ...ACK!!" She paused as she felt her cell go off in her pocket. "Hang on okay?"

"Sure." Rose casually leaned on the railing and looked down as her neighbor fished out her mobile and answered it.

"Hello?" she asked, not having bothered to check the number first.

Rose watched as Anita suddenly got miffed.

"Bloody hell!! You trying to give me an aneurism?!" the woman griped. Rose watched her expression change to one of shock, then exasperation.

Miss Anita glanced at her watch again and made a face. "Well, it's not my fault!! Rose is back with her guy-friend and they were yelling and screaming just outside my door!"

'Ah.' Thought Rose. 'So that's why she was being all 'Secret Agent' earlier.'

"Just about ten minutes ago they went inside,..." she continued. "So... they started about a half-hour ago."

Had they really been yelling for that long?

"Not. My. Fault!" She was smiling now, but still looked slightly miffed at the person on the other end. "That bloody alarm clock of mine didn't go off again!"

Was that all? Rose wondered if that excuse would work on her mum... or the Doctor.

She looked back down as her friend huffed in frustration. "Alright! I get it. My life sucks and you think that's funny as hell!!" A pause. "Ugh. Fine then, Mr. Giggles, I'm leaving right now." she paused, then hung up the phone.

"Who was that?" Rose asked. "Sounds like you don't get along." She was trying very hard not to grin.

"Actually, we're good friends, but he can just.... ooh!! Sometimes I can't stand him!!" Anita stomped her foot for emphasis.

"I know someone like that..." she said with a glance to her front door.

"Oh well, I better go. Nice to see you again, Rose!" she waved and turned to go.

"Wait!" Rose stopped her. Before you go, I've been wondering something for quite some time..."

"What's that?"

"Your hair. How did you get it to be like that?" Rose had always wondered about that. Her friend had straight blonde, shoulder length hair, but it had vertical stripes of brunette in it. And the ends of her hair were a bit blue. It was pretty.

Anita looked bewildered for a second and touched her hair. "Y'know... I'm not sure. It just grows that way. Strange really, but, your the first person to ask me that in quite some time." The woman turned to leave but again, she turned back. "Oh... the blue tips... I did that." she said with a smile, then turned... nearly bumping into the Tardis in her hurry to leave.

Rose watched her go. "Who's hair _grows_ like that?" she muttered to herself just as her friend turned the corner and out of sight.

The front door suddenly flew open and out dashed the Doctor like all of hell was behind him.

"ABSOLUTELY _NOT!!!_" he shouted to the house. Jackie Tyler ran out after him.

Well, not hell _exactly_, but to the Doctor, it was pretty close. "Come back!! I only asked him to set the table!!"

And Rose was hot on their heels. "Mum! Let the Doctor alone!!"

The Doctor was inside the Tardis a few seconds later, most likely breaking all recorded land speed records in the process.

=-=-=

The Doctor had made it safely to the Tardis. He was so proud of himself. He wasn't quite sure what had triggered the slightly unstable, in his oppinion, mother of his companion to snap at him like that. Hadn't he told her several times that he 'didn't do domestic'?

He shook his head and sighed. Rose was outside theTardis trying to explain to her why you didn't ask Time Lords to set tables. From the sounds he was hearing, it wasn't going too well.

An hour and a half later it had finally gotten quiet. Rose had called to him and said something like "I'm taking mum inside now. Try to stay out of trouble while I'm gone." but he'd been too busy trying to get his ears to stop ringing from that last smack, so he didn't quite register what she'd said.

POP!

The Doctor shook his head and worked his jaw a few times. Having gotten his ears to pop, finally ending the annoying ringing, he was now able to hear correctly.

Good thing too, or he'd have missed the light knocking on the Tardis door. Had Jackie returned to appologise? Or was Rose fed up and ready to leave?

He opened the door, fully expecting to see a Tyler, however there is no one in sight.

Just a box.

And it's addressed to him.

=-=-=

"I'm back, Doctor!" Rose said when she walked into the Tardis a few hours later, lugging a huge sack of clean clothes. A sack she left by the door when she noticed that the Doctor was acting a bit odd. "Uh, Doctor?" She carefully approached him.

He was sitting in The Chair, as Rose called it, with his back to her. "Hi Rose!" he said with a wave, but he didn't look up.

"...Doctor?"

"I got a package." he announced proudly, still not moving from his spot. As Rose got closer, trying her very hardest to avoid making a rude comment regarding what he'd said, she saw that he was staring intently at a small cardboard box about 1 foor square.

"When did'ja get it?" she asked while motioning for him to move over some. "Scooch."

He did scoot over. Now that he was so skinny, he and Rose, although a bit close, could both fit comfortably in the pilot's chair. "It showed up outside the door a minute or two after you left, I think."

"Oh. Well why haven't you opened it yet?"

He slowly turned his head to look at her. "It was delivered to the Tardis and addressed to me."

Rose blinked. "...oh. Right."

A second later the meaning of his words became clear. "It was addressed... to you?"

"Mmm-hmm." He leaned back and casually put his hands behind his head, stretched out his long legs, and crossed them at the ankles.

They sat there in silence for a moment until Rose got up and walked over to the box. She squatted down and looked at the top.

In beautifully scrawled letters it said:

_To: The Doctor_

_Tardis_

_C/O Powell Estate_

_London, England_

Rose looked a bit bewildered. Except for the fact that it was addressed to come directly to the Tardis, she didn't see anything out of the ordinary. She glanced over to see the Doctor was now looking at her instead of the box. "It's addressed here."

"Yes it is, Rose." he was acting smug and all-knowing again. He'd been trying for almost a year now to train her to be a good, proper companion.

She looked at it again and noticed something else. "No return address."

He nodded. She was catching on. "And no postmark either."

Rose looked and, sure enough, there was just a stamp. "How weird."

"And incorrect postage to boot." he smiled.

"It didn't go through the post then." When he shook his head she smiled too. "Good thing too. The postman'd have a _fit_ trying to figure out where the Tardis family lives."

They both laughed at the thought of the poor postman.

When the laughter died down, something occured to her. "Someone knows about the Tardis."

"...bingo." He abruptly popped up from his seat and joined Rose in squatting next to the package. "And the funny thing is..." he pulled out his Sonic Screwdriver and scanned the brown cardboard. "...I can't find any trace of who sent it. Infact, besides me, there aren't any fingerprints on it anywhere."

"Nowhere?"

"Not even under the tape."

"Open it up. Maybe they left a note." she suggested.

The Doctor didn't see any reason not to, so he carefully opened the box. "Packing peanuts... tissue paper... someone went all-out..." he muttered to himself. "AHA!!" The Doctor then pulled out an object in a bubblewrap sleeve from all the packing material.

"A book?"

"Not just any book, Rose. This is the book I left in Alexandria." He was almost at a whisper as he pulled it out of the sleeve. "I thought it had been destroyed in the fire... but I guess not."

Rose watched as he carefully looked it over, then opened the cover. She could see writing, but she wasn't close enough to read it. "What's that?" she asked him.

"Your note." he turned it to let her see.

_Doctor_

_Here's your book back. Please try to clean up after yourself next time._

_~Doxia _

Rose wasn't sure what to think. "You know anyone named Doxia?"

"Nope." he half-lied. And truthfully, he _didn't_. But, for some reason, it seemed familliar to him. He shook his head. "Never heard it before."

He was about to say something else, when Jackie started pounding on the door again and shouting words that would make a sailor blush. Apparently, She'd found something in Rose's box of souveniers that she didn't like one bit.

"Time to go!" he announced and absent-mindedly put the book in his coat pocket.

"Where to?" Rose asked while tidying up the packaging mess. She tossed it into a door and hoped the ship had switched the rooms around so it ended up in a trashcan instead of the wardrobe room or something.

"Dunno! Anywhere but here!" the Time Lord replied while seemingly trying to be in three places at once.

A terrible thought pushed it's way into the young lady's mind. "What about my mum?!"

The Doctor paused for a moment and pondered this. "Right." He ran over to the red phone and whacked something. "JACKIE TYLER!! PLEASE STEP AWAY FROM THE POLICE BOX!!" he shouted into the speaker and grinned when he saw her eyes bug out over the monitor as she backed up. "Haha!!! That'll teach ya!!" and he resumed his piloting.

"Whatever works..." Rose giggled to herself.

The Doctor pulled a lever and they were off.


	4. Chapter 3: Arc 1

They had landed behind a hill near a beautiful little countryside village. After climbing the hill to get a look at it, the Doctor had rushed her back inside the Tardis and insisted she change into something more befitting of the 1800s; lest they end up banished like the last time they were in this period.

After changing into an older version of his brown pinstripes and converse, and managing to get Rose into a maroon dress that blended in, they went to check the place out.

=-=-=

Rose was used to hearing the Doctor speak Gallifreyan frome time to time. Ever since he'd regenerated he'd occasionally lapse into his native tongue when he was mad, surprised, or just answering a question while distracted. He'd tried to teach it to her but it hadn't gone too well. She'd learned to recognise the language when she heard it, she just had no idea what it meant. So when the Doctor suddenly stopped short and said something in Gallifreyan, Rose was more interested in what had caused it than what he'd said.

"...ex jxak!!" he blurted when he noticed the paper on the street.

"What's wrong Doctor?" she asked him as he picked it up to get a better look.

"Rose... We're in Romania." he told her, staring at the paper.

Rose couldn't think of why that would be a bad thing... till she looked at the paper. "TRANSYLVANIA?!" The Doctor nodded. "You've GOT to be joking!!" He shook his head mutely. "You mean to tell me that we're gonna hafta deal with VAMPI-mph!!" the time lord quickly put a hand over her mouth and pulled them into a side street.

"Shush! I don't think it's a good idea to be shouting that!" he whispered in her ear urgently.

Pulling his hand away, she querried, "Why not?"

He pointed past her at the market. "Because," he explained, "they look scared enough already."

"You mean... there might actally be vampires here?!"

Again he nodded.

"Great. First Werewolves, now Vampires! I just hope you don't get us banished again!" she giggled.

=-=-=

They walked around silently for about an hour, just observing. The people did indeed seem to be living in fear; but of what, they weren't sure. The two stopped for lunch at a pub not far from the square and discussed what they should do next.

"So" questioned the Doctor, taking a bite of his food. "What do you suggest we do?"

Rose swallowed a bite. "Why do you keep asking me?"

"Because, if your going to be travelling with me for a while, your going to need to be a good companion. And a good companion can think for herself." The Doctor took a sip of his banana daquiri, carrying a banana was always a good idea, and continued. "I'm... training you." he said with a smirk.

She smirked back. "Okay... 'teacher'... I think we should-" she stopped when they heard a woman scream. "I think we should go see who's screaming and why!" she stated excitedly and stood up.

"A plus!" he grinned, going along with the 'teacher' comment. They both ran out the door. The Doctor ran back in a second later, grabbed his drink and ran back out. A second after that, Rose ran in, dropped a few gold pieces onto the table, she'd found them in her dress' pocket earlier, and followed him out.

=-=-=

They followed the scream about a block before coming upon a growing crowd of villagers. In the center of the crowd, a young woman stood over the body of a dead man.

Rose gasped when she saw it. "Oh my-... Doctor.... that man's ghost white!"

"I can see that, Rose." He loved to mess with her. She had a bad habit of stating the obvious, and he was hoping to break her of it. "Excuse me, I'm a Doctor." he told the crowd, and knealt by the body. "Nurse..?" Rose stepped closer and joined him. "What do you think killed him, Rose?"

"I was about to ask you that..."

"If you want to be my companion..." he repeated part of what he'd said earlier. She got the point.

"Well.." she thought. "He's so pale.... he looks almost like that woman we saw on Wacom Station... the one who died of..." she gasped and checked his neck. "...bite marks.." she muttered before remembering that she was the focus of a crowd, and hoped they hadn't heard her. The Doctor and her shared a look and she stood up. "Okay, there's nothing to see here. Go home." she tried her best Brit Cop Crowd Control immitation. It seemed to work, since people began walking away. _I can't believe that worked._ she thought.

"Well Rose?" he turned to her. "What does your Companion's Intuition tell you?"

"It tells me this man died of massive blood loss."

"Very good! And, being where we are, I'd guess it was.... a Vampire!!" He said that last bit with his best 'Vampire' accent, making his companion giggle.

"Alright 'Vlad', you take uptown, I'll take downtown?"

=-=-=

"I'm telling you, it's HIM! He's back from the grave!!"

"Calm down, ma'am. I really don't think it's a 400 year old, blood-sucking murderer." the Doctor trid to calm her down. That was the sixth person he'd heard this from. Always the same basic story. A bloody murderer from long ago, a bunch of bodies with no blood and puncture wounds on their neck, and a creepy old villa on a hill that is supposed to be haunted.

The Doctor sighed. "Thank you for your time, ma'am."

=-=-=

"What kind of lights?" she asked the man.

"I don't know! It was brighter than any torch, and it shone in just one direction! And the strangest sound! Like thunder; only it was a clear night!!"

"....and is there anything else you can tell me?"

=-=-=

"Your kidding!?"

"Nope!" They had met at the Tardis to have tea and compare results. "I'm totally serious!" he sipped his tea and continued. "They really believe it's Vlad the Impaler, returned from the dead!"

"Dracula?!" Rose laughed. "They honestly believe it's Dracula doing all this?!"

"Yup! And according to the date on that paper I saw, it's exactly 400 years since he died!"

"That's just silly. It _can't_ be him!" but the Doctor tutted at her.

"Now Rose, how can you say that after meeting the Gelth?"

"Hmm.... I see your point..." she sipped her tea and thought a minute. "Then what do YOU think it is?"

"I dunno." he took another sip and suddenly thought of something. "Mm! What did you find?"

"Oh! Your gonna love it! Apparently, they saw lights in a graveyard and strange noises like thunder."

"Think it was just grave robbers?"

"Don't think so." the Tyler girl poured herself some more tea. "It sounds more like what a mate of mine described when she claimed she saw aliens." Sip.

"So... your group says aliens and mine says vampires...."

She chuckled. "I wonder if it isn't aliens pretending to be vampires to scare the town?"

He thought a second, then shook his head. "Naah. Nothing to be gained from it."

"Well, If _I_ were an alien, I'd think that would be the best practical joke ever." she grinned widely.

"Alien pranksters?"

"Sure! Why not?"

"......good point."

And they both laughed.

=-=-=

Rose screamed, and smacked the Doctor, who started giggling. "You cut that out!!! It's bad enough you had to drag me to a supposedly-haunted old mansion, quit trying to scare me!" she stomped her foot for emphasis. "And the next time you start howling out of the blue like that, I'm gonna smack ya one!"

"Oh! But you should have seen your face!!" He was having trouble standing he was laughing so hard.

Rose crossed her arms and pouted. "I hope you have a heart attack."

He stopped laughing for a second. "Kinda anti-climactic isn't it, dying of a boring old heart attack in a town with aliens and vampires?"

"Well, I guess, a bit..." she cracked a grin. "I guess I should add that to my list of 'Most Interesting Ways For A Time Lord To Regenerate: Anti-climactic Death-by-heart attack!'" They shared a laugh over that, then continued walking.

=-=-=

"Okay. Creepy foyer: check. Next we check..."

"The creepy sitting room?" Rose offered.

"Creepy sitting room it is!! C'mon Miss Tyler!" He pulled her to the larghe double doors and opened them with a creak. "Oooh.... spooky... After you!"

"Not a chance." She refused to get in front of the Doctor when he was in this kind of mood.

"...suit yourself."

The room was pitch black and the floor creaked as soon as he stepped on it.

"Oh no! I'm SO not going in there, in the dark, with _you_!"

The Doctor smiled at her and lit a nearby torch with his screwdriver. "Better?"

"Much."

They proceeded to examine the rest of the mansion. All that was left now, was the basement.

"Creepy old house: Check. Time for the creepy basement!"

Rose groaned. "How can you possibly be this excited about a dusty old basement?"

He looked confused. "How can _you NOT_?"

She rolled her eyes and opened the door. The Doctor was instantly rushing in and looking around.

"Find anything?" she asked after a minute of trying to keep up with his rushing around the room.

He stopped and looked at her like she was stupid. "Rose! It's right HERE!!!" he gestured to the room. "It's plain as day!!"

She looked around. Aside from a bit of chemistry equipment, it looked like a plain old basement. "I'm sorry Doctor... What is it I'm looking at?"

He huffed a bit and bent down to touch the concrete floor. "What do you see here, Rose?"

She wondered if this was a trick question. "Uh.... concrete."

He resisted the urge to do a facepalm and sighed instead. He wiped his finger across the floor and showed it to her.

".......umm..."

"Rose!! What do you see on my finger?!" he asked.

"....nothing."

He gestured to the cement floor. "And what's on the floor?"

She stared at him. "Get on with it..."

"Nothing!! There's absolutely nothing on this floor!!"

Rose felt like one of them was totally stupid. She wasn't sure it was him though. "....so?"

He groaned in frustration. "Rose?! WHY is there nothing on the floor?"

She paused. "Umm.... because.... they didn't have anything to store in their basement?"

"This room is different from all the others. How?" He had that look. That look that said 'I-know-something-you-don't-know'.

She looked around carefully this time, thinking aloud. "Lessee... the other rooms had carpet... aaand.... they had furniture...." she looked to him everytime she said something, looking for any hint that she was getting close. "Theeeey.... they were creepy...."

He shook his head again and glanced at the ceiling.

"The ceiling..?" She looked at it. What did the ceiling hafta do with....

The Doctor could tell she'd figured it out.

"There aren't any spiderwebs!!" She smiled when he started clapping. "Infact, it's totally spotless in here!!"

"Bravo! Molto Bene, Rose Tyler!!" He cheered for her.

"But why would it be dirty up there and not down here.... unless... _unless someone had been down here!!_" they said the last bit together.

"Bingo! Next stop, The cemetary!!" and he walked out of the room happily.

_Ugh_ Rose thought._ Creepy mansion, now a cemetary. Why can't I ever get a haunted shopping mall!?_ she mentally complained, following after him.


	5. Chapter 4: Arc 1

It was a typical cemetary. Gravestones, a bit of fog and creepy as hell! The blonde would have been scared stiff if it weren't for the Doctor, bouncing with glee in front of her, neutralizing a good portion of the creepiness.

"Something's off here, Rose." The Doctor announced after passing a few gravestones. "Can you feel it?"

She glanced around. "...looks like a cemetary to me." she said flatly. The Doctor rolled his eyes and they walked a bit more. "I'll go look over there." she said, heading down a row of headstones. She stopped almost immediately, a chill running down her spine. "Brr! Did you feel that?" she called to him.

"Feel what?" but a moment later he had chills too. "Whoo! Cold!"

"But... the smell... strange..." Rose noticed when the sensation had subsided.

He nodded. "Kinda..." He cringed. "Why does it make me think of Jack?" he frowned.

They stood there a moment longer, trying to figure out what the smell was, when the chills returned.

"Ugh. I know why." Rose deadpanned. "Bleach. Bleach and Lavender."

The Doctor winced. "Oh. Right. Cleaning day."

They both cringed at the memory.

It had happened back when Jack Harkness had been travelling with them, and the Doctor was still bald with big ears and a leather jacket. They had decided to clean the Tardis. They'd drawn lots. Rose was to scrub down the outside and clean her and Jacks rooms, the Doctor would clean his room, the console room, and activate the auto clean for the other countless rooms, and Jack had gotten bathroom duty. Rose and the Doctor had decided on a break an hour later and went to find Jack. He was dresses in a purple and white maid's dress, scrubbing out a toilet with bleach. His usual scent of lavender soap contrasting sharply with the chemical smell of the bleach.

At the time they'd laughed at how silly he'd looked. Now, in a cemetary, the memory was just disturbing.

"Let's keep going, before I puke." the Doctor announced. Rose nodded and followed close behind.

The Chills had returned a few more times, each as unnerving as before. The Time Lord got tired of it rather quickly and pulled out his Sonic Screwdriver, determined to find out what was causing it.

They walked close together for about ten minutes before another chill got them. As soon as it did, the Sonic bleeped and the Doctor perked up. "Got something!" He waved it around, this way and that, trying to get a fix in what had made it bleep. "That's strange... it's gone!"

Rose looked up at him. "Gone? What's gone?"

"I don't know! It was there, then it dissapeared." He frowned. "It scans like a temporal annomaly but..."

"Do things like that just dissapear?" she questioned, looking at the device as well.

"No... no they don't... they tend to stay put unless..." he stopped and stared into space with a blank look on his face. He did that when he was trying to figure something out.

After a minute of him staring at nothing, he shouted, causing his companion to jump. "YES! ...no... OH! BRILLIANT!"

After checking that her heart was still where it should be, and in proper working order, she asked, "Did you think of something?"

He grinned at her. "Of course!"

She smirked. "Anything helpful?"

He smiled back. "Always! Allons-y!" and he started walking, Rose in tow.

They headed for a large tomb nearby, the Doctor recalibrating the scan every few seconds or so. As they got closer, the Sonic started going berserk, beeping like crazy, then seeming to lose the signal.

"Is it broken?" Rose asked.

"What's wrong with you? You were working fine a second ago..." Rose giggled as the Doctor started talking to his Screwdriver, like he did with the Tardis when it wasn't behaving like it should.

Rose briefly wondered if the Doctor was as sane as he claimed, what with his habit of talking to inanimate objects. Ok so the Tardis was alive and therefore not technically inanimate, but it was close to it most of the time, so she tended to count it as not alive. (Although it reminded her of the opposite on a regular basis.)

The Doctor tapped the thing on his palm a few times, only to have the blue light turn red and start wailing like a siren alarm. "What the hell?" The Doctor shouted and shut it off, staring at it like it had stood up and shook his hand.

Rose peeked over his arm to look at it too. "Umm... it's not s'posed ta do that... is it?" she asked, glancing at his face.

"...no... it's not..." Confusion, excitement, interest, surprise, facination. A number of emotions flitted across his face in what Rose had once referred to as 'Mood Whiplash'. He poked the end with the light and stared at it a moment longer before tucking it in his coat pocket. "Well, I guess we'll hafta look around..." he said with a slight dissapointment in his voice.

Rose giggled. Sometimes traveling with the Doctor was worth it, if only to see how he reacts to stuff. She wasn't dissapointed when, about ten minutes later, she called him away from reading headstones, to the side of the crypt. "Doctor! Come look at this!"

"A ship! There's an alien spacecraft in the middle of an 1867 graveyard!" He was practically bristling with excitement. Rose watched as he poked, prodded, scanned and caressed the ship-in-disguise. "Look Rose! A ship in a graveyard, disguised as a crypt!"

Rose laughed. "Yes it is." She had been the one to find it, after all. "...would you like me to leave you two _alone_ for a moment?" she snickered after a minute or so of watching him rub the concrete wall of the crypt.

He turned and looked at her, then said with a totally straight face; "Yes, if you'd come back in an hour or so, we should be finished by then." and kept on rubbing it.

Rose collapsed, laughing hysterically at him.

He smirked and looked fondly at the wall, then gave it a good lick.

...or he would have. But something was off. All the hairs on his neck were standing up and it felt like he had to sneeze. "Rose? Could you come here a second?"

His voice was serious, killing her laughter in her throat. "What is it?"

He took her hand and laid it gently on the stone. She giggled nervously and fought the urge to pull her hand away. "That is so weird." Every single one of the tiny blonde hairs on her hand were sticking straight up. "It feels like static from a clothes dryer."

"Yeah, only about a million times stronger." As they sat there, the Doctor's mind was racing. He knew what it was; somewhere in his mind, he knew. The problem was finding that part of his brain and dragging the information out of it. Usually it required a minute or so of whacking himself in the head... "PHASING!" he suddenly shouted, jumping up.

"Deaf now..." deadpanned the blonde, who was being very melodramatic about popping her ear.

"Oh. Sorry." Reaching down, he took her other hand and pulled her to her feet. When he was sure she was ok, he returned to his bouncy, overly excited state. "But, phasing!"

"Phasing?" parroted Rose. The word sounded familliar, but with the Doctor, she sometimes couldn't tell. He had a habit of rambling about things that had no bearing on the current situation. Perhaps she'd heard it during one of his tangents?

"Yeah!" The blank look he was getting from his companion told him that she wasn't tracking. "Phasing... like..." Mentally grasping, he searched frantically for anything to get her on the same page as him. "Like... Jack on cleaning day."

The girl shivered and rubbed her arms. "I thought we'd agreed that that was too creepy to mention while in a cemetary?"

"Well, yeah; but do you remember why I thought it was so funny?"

She was getting that 'one-of-us-is-thick' feeling again... "Because he looked rediculous?"

The obvious. He should have known. "Aside from that."

She took a moment to ponder this. "Umm... something to do with the smell?" Her expression was one of hope and confusion. Confused about the question, but hoping she'd given a good answer.

"YES! Because, until that moment, I'd thought that the only way to create that... admittedly nauseating scent... was to use a phasing device!" The Doctor, unable to contain his enthusiasm, was gesturing wildly and bouncing in place slightly.

Rose crossed her arms and raised one eyebrow. Her thinking was, maybe if she mimicked his habits, particularly the ones he used when deep in thought, then she could get her mind to go in the same direction. "So it's not ghosts; it's phasing... somethings?"

"Yep! Phasing somethings!" he said with a grin, as if it were a phrase you'd say everyday.

A pause. "And phasing iiiiis..."

Tossing aside the mental image of smacking some sense into the girl, the Doctor tried to explain in a way she could understand. "It basically means that, while not ghosts, they do have the same interactive properties to anyone observing them outside of the..." A blank stare. Those were the glazed over eyes of a student who was bored to tears by their lecturing professor. He paced a minute in thought, then tried a more direct approach. "The Gelth. They could interact with us if they wanted to, but we were helpless to even touch them. We knew they were there, but that's about as far as it went."

Rose nodded. "Yeah, they could fly through people and make dead bodies move."

He nodded. "Same basic idea. They are invisible to us and we can't touch them, but they, whoever 'they' are, have the ability to either pass through us harmlessly, or suck us dry."

"So what can we do about it? It's not like there's a tear in space here that we can just close up, like the one in Cardiff, is there?" Great. Just what she needed. A transylvanian Canary Wharf.

"Nah. Not likely. They only have the same interactive proper... the same basic abilities as the Gelth; that doesn't make them dimention-hopping energy creatures."

"So, not Gelth."

"No."

"Then what?"

More pacing. "Well... strictly speaking... taking into account the location and barometric pressure of the region... and correcting for the latitudinal orientation... if I had to be completely honest..."

"You've no clue, have you?" she bluntly interrupted. Rose was fiddling with her hair and biting the tip of her tongue with a bemused look on her face. It was rare, but she enjoyed the moments when the Doctor didn't know something.

"None whatsoever." shrugged the Time Lord.

She nodded in that 'thought so' way that so often made the Doctor feel he was just a bit thick.

In an effort to convince, mostly himself, that he was _not_ thick, he quickly added, "BUT! I do know how they're doing it, or at least I've a basic idea, so now it's just a matter of getting their attention!" Lacing his arm with hers, they began to walk out of the cemetary and back to town.

"So how are you planning on getting their attention?" she pondered aloud. "Crop circles?"

He stopped walking for a moment and looked at her with his patented 'Rose-are-you-being-serious-or-just-messing-with-me' look. Fortunately, he was pretty sure she was just messing with him. "Only if you want to start up the whole 'alien conspiracy theory' about a hundred years early."

Rose laughed and tugged him on.


End file.
